In the Kitchen: Zuppa Toscana (my loosely based version)

My attempt at making a Zuppa Toscana soup a bit healthier. Unfortunately I didn't really measure the ingredients so these are more general guidelines - any amount of the following list will be delicious!

1 cup lentils

4 medium sized potatoes cubed

1 pound of fresh pork sausage (italian sausage removed from casings is more traditional)

1 half chopped white onion

2 tablespoons of minced garlic

1 tablespoon of crushed red pepper flakes (more or less depending on taste)

1 tablespoon of italian seasoning

1 full carton of chicken broth

2 cups of spinach (kale is more traditional, my supermarket's kale didn't look very good so I used spinach)

1/4 cup half and half (I didn't have this so I used fat free milk, it was definitely less rich but less calories too)

salt and pepper to taste

Bring chicken broth to boil and add lentils (rinse them first in a colander), onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, and Italian seasoning and cook for 15 minutes at a low boil. Add potatoes and bring back up to a boil (I had to add a little extra water to cover the potatoes). I cooked my sausage in a pan so I could drain most of the fat out afterwards on some paper towels. The traditional method calls for crumbling the sausage in the boiling broth with the rest of the ingredients until it is cooked through - I really didn't want all that extra fat in my soup though. I added the sausage to my soup after I had cooked and blotted the grease. The soup is done when the potatoes are soft. Turn off the heat and add the spinach (or kale) and stir until the greens are soft. Add the milk (or half and half) last. Serve it up!

**traditionally there are no lentils in this soup...I have recently been in the habit of adding lentils to all my soups to bulk them up by adding fiber and no fat. This is a super filling soup!